Wednesday, January 1, 2025.

  Under the ashen sky of the New Year’s first day, a narrow, dimly lit alley reeking of mold and decay became the stage for cruelty. The raucous laughter of a group of young men echoed unnaturally through the stillness.

  “Look at that pathetic face—poor and low-class, yet still trying to act classy!”

  One of them cackled, snatching the victim’s worn-out bag and tossing it into a filthy puddle.

  “Don’t make jokes out of someone’s appearance or family background and think you’re some comedy god,” a low, icy voice cut through from behind a crumbling wall. “It’s not funny at all.”

  The bullies froze. The leader snarled, “Who the hell are you?”

  A shadow stepped out from nothingness, eyes deep and abyssal, regarding them as if they were already rotting corpses.

  “Heaven has rejected you.”

  Instantly, the air twisted. Black, slimy, invisible arms erupted from the ground, wrapping tightly around the criminals’ ankles. They screamed, clawing at empty air, but their bodies were dragged helplessly across the jagged pavement, converging at the feet of the executioner.

  Yumoncaedra stood motionless, a statue of death incarnate. When the last victim was pulled right to the tip of his boot, he simply raised his foot.

  Crunch!

  A single, devastating stomp. Skulls shattered like overripe watermelons. Crimson blood soaked into the earth, ending the existence of those who had trampled on human dignity.

  Amid the wreckage, Tehimosin appeared. The wind whipped his silver hair as a cryptic smile played on his lips.

  “You are Yumoncaedra. The hunter of demons disguised as humans.”

  Yumoncaedra didn’t turn, hands still stained with the aura of death. Tehimosin continued, his voice like the slow reading of an endless indictment:

  “Those who torture without mercy, those who thirst for blood and slaughter even children. Those who lose all humanity to drug-induced delusions—capable of severing limbs or decapitating victims while they’re still conscious… The drunken madmen, the organ traffickers who slice throats, cut out tongues, letting their prey bleed out slowly in silent agony… You kill them all, don’t you?”

  Yumoncaedra finally turned, eyes sharp as blades. “That’s right. And who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of the ‘Four Saints’ group. I came to inform you—the gang that was tormenting people here has been completely eradicated.”

  “Who did it?”

  “The ‘Children of God.’ Rest easy,” Tehimosin stepped closer, voice casual. “I took care of them myself.”

  Yumoncaedra narrowed his eyes. “You’re on our side?”

  “Exactly. I too specialize in punishing those who’ve lost every trace of humanity—those no longer worthy of being called human.”

  A perfect lie, delivered with chilling nonchalance.

  “What do you want from me?” Yumoncaedra asked, suspicion still thick in his tone.

  “Nothing at all. I just want to walk this path alongside you.”

  Yumoncaedra was silent for a long moment before turning away. “Do whatever you want.”

  The two figures walked down the street. Passing a small roadside drink stall, they saw a group of friends gathered around, laughing heartily at a boy who sat with his head buried in his hands, crying over a breakup.

  “Even when a close friend gets heartbroken, they still turn it into a joke. How pathetic,” Yumoncaedra muttered, disgust plain on his face.

  Tehimosin glanced at the crowd, his voice laced with sharp sarcasm. “Looks innocent on the surface, but behind their backs they tear each other apart even worse.”

  Yumoncaedra stopped walking and looked at his new companion. A flicker of understanding passed through his cold gaze.

  “You think so too? Looks like we’re more alike than I thought.”

  Under the flickering streetlights, the two judges stepped deeper into the night—where the most inhuman crimes still lurked, waiting to be judged and executed.

  The air was thick with the stench of rust and death.

  Yumoncaedra and Tehimosin stood before an abandoned sawmill on the outskirts of the city. Inside, flickering yellow lights cast eerie shadows over scenes that would make even demons shudder.

  This was the lair of an international human and organ trafficking syndicate. On rusted operating tables lay victims who were still conscious, their mouths stitched shut, eyes wide with terror as they watched the masked butchers—human in appearance only—brandish scalpels and saws. No anesthesia was used to save costs; the victims were left to feel every incision, every tear of flesh, every extraction of organs and gouging of eyes while they still breathed.

  In one corner, a group of drug-crazed addicts, high on crystal meth, laughed maniacally as they hacked off the limbs of a helpless child with machetes, purely to satisfy their deranged bloodlust.

  “Do you see this?” Tehimosin whispered.

  Yumoncaedra did not reply. The killing intent radiating from his body dropped the temperature in the room to freezing.

  “Filth.”

  His footsteps thudded against the rotting wooden floor. The butchers spun around, hands still dripping fresh blood. A burly man gripping a crimson-stained scalpel snarled:

  “Who the hell is this kid? Looking to donate organs early?”

  Yumoncaedra remained silent.

  In an instant, from the shadows beneath the feet of the criminals, countless pitch-black, skeletal invisible arms burst forth. They were not mere physical force—they carried the accumulated resentment of thousands of innocent souls slaughtered by these very hands.

  The arms coiled around necks, wrists, and ankles, dragging the traffickers across the ground with sickening scrapes. Bones cracked and joints popped audibly. Despite their thrashing, sobbing, and begging, the invisible grip yanked them relentlessly toward Yumoncaedra.

  One by one, they were hurled into a trembling pile at his feet—a heap of quivering, blood-soaked flesh.

  “Heaven has rejected you.”

  Yumoncaedra coldly raised his foot high and brought it down on the first skull.

  Crunch!

  A terrifying pressure concentrated at the point of impact. The cranium shattered like glass.

  Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

  In mere seconds, every guilty head exploded into fragments. No time for regret. No chance for a final scream. Those who once dismembered others now met the most pathetic end imaginable.

  The two shadows left the sawmill behind, leaving only a deathly silence pierced by the wind whistling through broken doors and shattered windows.

  Leaving the old sawmill behind, the scene before them opened into the shadowy underside of a massive overpass spanning a pitch-black river. Wind howled through the gaps in the concrete pillars, carrying the damp rot of mold mixed with the sharp stench of cheap chemicals wafting from the dark corners untouched by light.

  This was the gathering place of meth addicts and those driven into psychosis by stimulant abuse. Amid the gray pillars streaked with graffiti, they had turned this trash-strewn patch of barren ground—littered with discarded needles and broken bottles—into a living hell of madness.

  Under the flickering yellow glow cast down from the streetlights high above, a horrifying tableau unfolded. A skeletal man, eyes rolled back to pure white, gripped a rusted meat cleaver in trembling hands. He cackled wildly, slashing at the empty air. At his feet lay a victim whose limbs had been hacked off, blood pooling across the filthy mud, yet the poor soul still gasped in excruciating agony, clinging to the last threads of life.

  Yumoncaedra stepped forward. The crunch of his boots on gravel echoed between the pillars like the tolling of a death knell.

  The drug-crazed man whipped around, drool streaming from his mouth, roaring: “You… you’re a demon too! I’ll gouge your eyes out!”

  He lunged in a frenzy, but before he could even graze the edge of Yumoncaedra’s coat, the ground beneath him shuddered violently.

  From pools of thick, inky shadow, countless pitch-black, skeletal invisible arms erupted. Cold as ice, they clamped around his ankles and wrists. With one brutal yank, the murderer was slammed face-first into the dirt, stunned and sprawled.

  Before he could recover, the black arms began dragging him across the ground strewn with broken glass and sharp stones. His accomplices—those sprawled in the dark corners beneath the bridge—were not spared either. Dozens of ghostly limbs stretched out, seizing and hauling every last one toward Yumoncaedra’s feet.

  They piled up in a quivering heap before him, bodies trembling and helpless like cornered prey. Yumoncaedra looked down at the mass of guilty flesh, his voice ice-cold:

  “Heaven has rejected you.”

  He raised his boot. At the point where the heel would strike, a swirling vortex of black death energy gathered, warping the air with crushing pressure.

  Crunch!

  He stomped down on the first killer’s head. Under the weight of a thousand tons, the skull shattered instantly beneath the sole, reduced to pulp.

  Without hesitation, he lifted his foot and brought it down on the next one already dragged into position by the black arms. The sound of craniums bursting rang out in steady, merciless rhythm. One after another, Yumoncaedra crushed every skull until the last. Those who once dismembered others now met the most pathetic end—headless corpses lying beneath the heel of justice.

  Tehimosin paused beside him, gazing at the spreading pool of blood beneath his companion’s boot. A strange, crooked smile curved his lips.

  “You just stomped their hallucinations into oblivion too. Let’s go—this place reeks.”

  Yumoncaedra turned, staring deeply into Tehimosin’s enigmatic eyes. “You say you stand on my side, yet I still find you far too calm while watching these atrocities unfold.”

  Tehimosin gave a soft chuckle, silver hair fluttering in the night wind. “I am the observer; you are the executioner. Aren’t we the perfect pair? There are still so many soulless monsters out there—we shouldn’t waste time lingering here.”

  The two figures departed from beneath the overpass, leaving behind those who would never again have the chance to commit another crime. The black river beside them flowed silently onward, as if trying to wash away the filth of this place.

  Chapter 4: Fragments of Indifference

  Wednesday, May 1, 2025.

  By the cold riverbank, Yumoncaedra leaned back against a patch of dry grass, his vacant eyes staring into the pitch-black void above. Tehimosin lay beside him in silence, waiting. The air grew thick as Yumoncaedra began to recall the shattered fragments of memory—the very things that had forged the man he was now.

  “You know, Tehimosin… indifference and apathy are the sharpest weapons of all. They don’t kill instantly. They slowly scrape away at the soul until nothing remains but an empty husk.”

  His voice was flat and even as he recounted the story of a mixed-race child whose foreign father had abandoned all responsibility the moment he was conceived. He grew up in the arms of his maternal grandparents in the countryside while his mother wandered the city streets to earn money and send it home. For him, school days were not paradise—they were a living hell on earth.

  “This world has been outdated and dull ever since I first became aware of it,” Yumoncaedra said with a bitter twist of his lips. “There, from classmates to teachers, everyone treated me like a toy for their amusement.”

  He began listing the names, the faces etched into his mind not out of affection, but because of the pain they had inflicted.

  “First was Dam—the short, fat one, barely 1.65 meters. He loved exploding like a bomb in the middle of class, then openly accusing me. He planted the most vulgar insults in everyone’s heads: ‘Yumoncaedra shits out crap,’ and his little gang would chime in with ‘Yumoncaedra shits so hard his hemorrhoids pop out.’ They mocked me with that garbage logic every single day.”

  He took a long breath, his voice growing colder as he moved to the next.

  “Then there was Dinh—well-built, 1.80 meters tall. A perverted sicko hiding behind a handsome facade. Every time I walked behind a girl, he’d take the chance to slap her butt and immediately shout: ‘Yumoncaedra did it!’ When I tried to explain—‘No, it was Dinh’—all I got was contemptuous stares. The girls would brush it off: ‘Someone as handsome as him would never do something perverted like that,’ and then slap me hard across the face. Once they left, Dinh would lean close to my ear and whisper meaningfully: ‘Appearance matters a lot.’”

  Chung—thin, about 1.70 meters—yanked my pants down in front of the girls, pointing and laughing: “Tiny dick!”

  Minh—also thin but towering at 1.90 meters—splashed water on my crotch: “Wet your pants already, huh!”

  Everyone knows boys bully with violence, but girls bully with words:

  Girl 1: Called Yumoncaedra autistic.

  Girl 2: Called him depressed.

  Girl 3: Called him gay.

  Girl 4: Called him a male prostitute, gigolo.

  Girl 5: Called him crazy.

  Girl 6: Called him insane.

  Girl 7: Called him stupid.

  Girl 8: Called him an idiot.

  Girl 9: Called him dumb.

  Girl 10: Called him a clown.

  Girl 11: Called him rude and ill-mannered.

  Girl 12: Called him a beggar.

  Girl 13: Called him perverted.

  Girl 14: Called him a dog.

  Girl 15: Called him weak.

  Girl 16: Called him spineless.

  Girl 17: Called him a coward.

  Girl 18: Called him short.

  Girl 19: Called him a country bumpkin.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Girl 20: Called him poor.

  Girl 21: Called him ugly.

  Girl 22: Called him dirty.

  Girl 23: Called him useless or a failure.

  Girl 24: Called him worthless.

  Girl 25: Called him trash.

  Girl 26: Called him paralyzed.

  Girl 27: Called him brain-dead.

  Girl 28: Called him garbage.

  Girl 29: Called him despicable.

  Girl 30: Called him old.

  Girl 31: Called him slow.

  Girl 32: Called him an orphan.

  Girl 33: Called him scum.

  Girl 34: Called him a mongrel.

  Girl 35: Called him disgusting.

  Girl 36: Said his eyes were as big as car headlights.

  The teachers were even worse. They turned his small stature into a running joke during class.

  Female teacher 1: “Students these days are so diligent—they only study and forget to eat, that’s why they’re tiny like Yumoncaedra. Haha!”

  Male teacher 1: “Where did the elementary school kid go? Haha!”

  Female teacher 2: “If it rains, find somewhere to hide, or the wind might blow you away.”

  Female teacher 3: “Yumoncaedra, you’re so small—someone could easily stuff you in a sack and sell you.”

  Male teacher 2: During the physical education vault test, Yumoncaedra cramped up and couldn’t jump. The teacher said: “What a nuisance. You’re the only one left in class who hasn’t jumped, and we have to submit grades this afternoon. Fine, I’ll just fail you in PE.”

  Male teacher 3: Dropped a prejudiced remark: “Poor people usually have small, weak appearances.”

  The pinnacle of depravity was the incident the whole class called “The Bloody Hand.”

  But the truth was laughably absurd—no one dared believe it. It was just a meaningless prank by RockyGrass.

  The girl, for no reason other than mischief, had smeared chicken blood on her hand and slapped a bright red handprint onto the hallway wall—a creepy, horror-movie cliché. The next morning, the school was in an uproar.

  And of course, they all pointed the finger at one person… Yumoncaedra.

  The reason? He was always the first to arrive at school. Whoever arrives first must be the culprit, right?

  No one bothered to use logic.

  The blood on the wall had long since dried, darkened to a deep crimson—clearly impossible for Yumoncaedra to have done it that morning. It must have happened the previous afternoon or evening—when he was still at home.

  Even after he explained, laid out the facts, it was useless. Teacher Tuyn—the school’s head disciplinarian—still called him to the office.

  She looked at him, voice gentle yet chilling:

  “Since no one dares to confess… you’ll have to take the blame in place of the real culprit to calm the entire school.”

  A sentence so cold it pierced through flesh.

  After writing the confession report and having his conduct grade lowered one level, Yumoncaedra quietly ran up to the rooftop. There, under the vast open sky, he sobbed as though the entire world was crushing his heart.

  From that day on, he never arrived at school early again.

  Because he had understood—in the teachers’ eyes, he was nothing more than a convenient scapegoat.

  The cruel pranks never stopped. People like Cam and Trang always found ways to drag him into games that degraded his dignity.

  One time, while the two were arguing:

  ? Trang sneered: “Stinky crotch.”

  ? Cam shot back: “Stinky armpits.”

  ? Trang retorted: “How do you know? Have you sniffed yet?”

  Then, as if they’d found a new toy, both turned and called:

  “Yumoncaedra, come here and sniff!”

  He looked at them, swallowing bitter saliva. He didn’t want to get involved—but fear forced him to obey.

  The two girls shoved their armpits and crotches right into his face. He lied:

  “There’s no smell at all.”

  But the truth… his nose registered the nauseating stench clearly:

  Trang’s armpits were sour and sharp; Cam’s crotch reeked of urine.

  He forced a smile, like a machine programmed never to resist.

  Every time Yumoncaedra entered the restroom, someone would mock:

  “Going to take a shit?”

  Then the whole group would shout his name loudly to draw everyone’s attention, turning it into a cheap circus performance in the hallway.

  In his mind, only one bitter thought echoed:

  “Do they want to eat my shit or something?”

  Once, a group of girls—for no apparent reason—spat water in his face, a mix of saliva and tap water, foul and cold. They laughed: “Look at your face—like a dog getting hosed down!”

  They treated him as if he weren’t human, just a plaything they could do whatever they wanted with.

  Another time, when he tripped and fell, instead of helping, they rushed over, grabbed both his ankles, and hoisted them up like a toy.

  The world flipped upside down. His head hung backward toward the ground, blood rushing to his face, burning hot; his pants slipped slightly, exposing pale skin. He struggled helplessly.

  Their smiles were full of malice.

  And then there were the days they casually tripped him so he fell flat on his back.

  They laughed hysterically: “Look at that—just like a chicken flipped upside down.”

  Their laughter echoed through the corridors while Yumoncaedra clenched his fists, wondering:

  “What did I ever do to deserve all of this?”

  Anything broken or damaged in class was blamed on Yumoncaedra (vases, windows, teaching tools…). Anything missing was said to have been stolen by him (brooms, dustpans, trash bins, desks, chairs…). They never did homework—they always copied his. When assigned cleaning duties, they forced him to do it all (sweeping the classroom, erasing the board, taking out the trash). Anyone paying attention would notice that for an entire year, only he did those tasks—but the school was too indifferent to care.

  Yumoncaedra returned to the present, voice hoarse:

  “No one ever stepped in to protect me from the bullying. Only indifference, eyes closed, turning away. That’s why now I feel this world… is truly boring and dull. To the point where I want to crush it all under my foot.”

  Yumoncaedra lifted his head, eyes red-rimmed:

  “They treated me like a freakish monster just because I stayed small. But anyone over 1.70 meters was a princess, a prince.”

  Chapter 5: The Appearance of the Two-Faced Girl

  Yumoncaedra shifted his shoulder slightly, the dry grass rustling beneath him in rhythm with his recounting. His gaze bored into the darkness, where memories of the person who had completely upended his life stood out in vivid, painful detail.

  “I had resigned myself to a lifetime of being bullied until the end. But then something happened that changed everything. It was in my senior year of high school—a transfer student arrived. A being even more revolting than the beatings or the insults.”

  He gritted his teeth as he uttered the name—Lam Thu.

  A person who lived with two faces, a master of hypocrisy who always concealed her ruthless, treacherous nature behind a mask of innocence and purity.

  She was a master manipulator who wanted to turn him into a toy to satisfy her selfishness and competitive streak.

  People often say: “Flirtatious girls are very alluring and captivating to men,” and that’s true.

  But remember—this is Yumoncaedra. All her ambiguous actions and intimate words had no effect on him whatsoever.

  Yumoncaedra recalled the legendary “two-faced” performances she put on.

  Once, he caught her walking out of a motel with her boyfriend—a university student from the Architecture department. In an instant, the angelic facade turned demonic; she threatened to have her boyfriend beat him into the hospital if he ever breathed a word. Yet in front of the class, she still played the role of the pure, innocent schoolgirl—never sharing a meal with him but praising his food as delicious, even spreading rumors that the two of them were exchanging diaries to get to know each other. Of course, it was all lies.

  “Her cunning reached an almost divine level,” Yumoncaedra continued. “She handed me a blank piece of paper and told me to write ‘I LOVE YOU.’ When I returned it blank, she swapped it with one she had already written herself, then pretended to be heartbroken in front of everyone: ‘Sorry, Yumoncaedra, I only see you as a friend.’ She always claimed to understand me so well that ‘just one look in my eyes and she knows what I want to say,’ even though I always looked at her with pure hatred.”

  When she wanted a cactus, she asked, “Does Yumoncaedra’s house have one?” I said “No.” She replied, “Whenever your house gets one, give me one, okay?” I said “No” again. But the next day, when her boyfriend gave her one, she lied and said it was from Yumoncaedra.

  Lam Thu’s manipulation even extended to the teachers. During the endurance running test (boys 500m, girls 300m), she pretended to sprain her ankle to avoid running, then asked some boy to run in her place—and the teacher agreed to her idea.

  But no guy was stupid enough to run 500m and then immediately run another 300m—where would the energy come from?

  Thu asked Yumoncaedra to run for her. Of course, he refused.

  When he rejected her, the cowardly teacher stepped in and threatened to fail him in the subject again if he didn’t help “the poor girl.”

  So Yumoncaedra had to run the extra 300m. He thought to himself: “Even the teacher wants to get her into bed.”

  Yumoncaedra felt uncomfortable being near her; she always caused him trouble and wasted his time.

  “She was a manipulative flirt,” Yumoncaedra growled. “In front of everyone, she played the role of a confident, outgoing, passionate, and kind-hearted girl. But in reality, she was just promiscuous, always trying to ‘trap’ men from the very first meeting. For Lam Thu, the boundary between friends and lovers never existed. The moment she saw a guy, her eyes lit up; she would immediately sidle up, lean in, press against him, drape an arm around his shoulder without the slightest hesitation. She called it ‘gestures between close friends,’ but in truth, it was flirtation ingrained in her very bones.”

  Every time he was bullied, she would step in to “protect” him. She wanted to show herself as someone special, outstanding, and different from the rest.

  But he understood—she was only using him to portray herself as a beautiful and good-hearted girl, all so she could attract attention, especially from the opposite sex.

  She had a boyfriend, yet she always acted intimate with him as if she were his girlfriend. And she did the same with other guys—getting close and cozy with one after another.

  Her boyfriend didn’t attend the same school, so he had no idea what she was doing—a true flirtatious girl.

  She had no boundaries between friends and lovers.

  The moment she saw a guy, she’d primp herself up, sidle over, and flirt shamelessly.

  Flirtatious women’s eyes light up the instant they see a man.

  Their main interest is men, so they constantly want to prove their appeal to the opposite sex—men who usually don’t scrutinize too closely and are always intrigued by their actions.

  Moreover, she was flirtatious even in her thoughts and mindset—that was certain.

  They considered it normal and not wrong at all. Thoughts lead to actions in reality. The distance between thinking and doing is only a single step.

  To her, “holding hands, hugging, kissing—these are just gestures between close friends,” Lam Thu would say.

  One of the most common actions of flirtatious girls is excessive intimacy with the opposite sex. Imagine a swimming pool full of guys with only one girl—you.

  For example, they don’t hesitate to lean against someone, press up against men, link arms, drape themselves over shoulders—gestures so intimate that outsiders would assume they were a couple.

  They let others touch their hands, hug them, kiss their cheeks, stroke or caress their thighs in seemingly casual moments… They don’t appear too easy, but they also don’t react strongly.

  Men love being touched; that sense of anticipation, occasionally satisfied, drives them wild with excitement. And flirtatious girls know exactly how to keep them pleased.

  The pinnacle of it all was when she openly groped a guy’s butt, making him visibly aroused—everyone saw it. Yumoncaedra was stunned: “How disgusting… she can be this shameless?”

  Yumoncaedra fell silent for a moment, the aura of death around him thickening.

  “To her, I was just a tool to polish her reputation. A two-faced, flirtatious girl full of possessiveness… She pushed me to the absolute limit of endurance.”

  Tehimosin lay beside him, eyes narrowing slightly. He could feel the smoldering rage behind Yumoncaedra’s cold exterior. These fragments of the past were exactly why his heel now crushed so mercilessly.

  Chapter 6: The Perfect Cover and the Final Verdict

  Yumoncaedra clenched the grass tightly in his fist, his voice turning hoarse as he reached the darkest corner of Lam Thu’s name.

  “Lam Thu… wasn’t just an ordinary two-faced girl. She had a past—a secret only I knew.”

  Tehimosin tilted his head, his tone gentle yet filled with curiosity:

  “What secret?”

  Yumoncaedra took a deep breath, then continued, each word dripping like blood.

  “In middle school, we attended the same school. I knew her—but she didn’t know me. Back then, Lam Thu wasn’t the gentle, feminine girl she pretended to be in high school. She was a wild beast. Aggressive, violent, constantly cursing, looking down on everyone—even teachers. She grabbed girls by the hair, scratched their faces, tore their clothes, beat parents until they bled, and even assaulted teachers. She took paid jobs beating up other girls for money. She had no hesitation turning others into bruised, broken heaps of flesh.”

  He paused, his gaze distant as if reliving the scene from years ago.

  “One afternoon on my way home from school, I witnessed it with my own eyes. She dragged another girl into a secluded corner behind the school, torturing and humiliating her—stripping her completely naked in broad daylight. She beat her mercilessly, punching, kicking, slapping relentlessly until the victim passed out. I saved that girl, and from that moment on, fear of Lam Thu took root deep in my mind.”

  Tehimosin nodded slightly.

  “And then in high school… she changed?”

  “Changed? No. In high school, she used me as a shield,” Yumoncaedra said with a cold laugh. “In front of everyone, she protected me, even confessed publicly: ‘Are you free? Let’s go on a date!’ The whole school paired us up. But when it was just the two of us… she showed her true face. Cursing, humiliating, verbally abusing me with the most vicious, heaviest words. Those words… haunted me so much I couldn’t sleep. Severe depression. Even now, I don’t want to remember them. If I kept them in my head… I probably would have jumped off a building long ago.”

  Just think about it—he endured three years of high school with those bullies, but he couldn’t last even three months with her.

  He let out a dry, bitter laugh.

  “I realized something: Girls always show their true selves when dealing with ‘ugly’ boys. No hiding, no pretense. But with handsome ones… they wear perfect masks. I wanted to help, so I decided to expose the truth, hoping everyone would wake up.”

  But what he received in return was betrayal even more bitter.

  “I told them straight: ‘Thu is two-faced, vulgar and fake, hypocritical…’ I even told her, ‘Be yourself. No one likes fake people, so be honest and true to yourself. Keep beating your classmates, beating teachers, beating parents like you used to.’ But what happened?”

  “She burst into tears, playing the innocent victim: ‘I was so naive wanting to be friends with you.’ ‘I felt sorry for you, that’s why I protected you.’ ‘No one played with you, so I did—and now you say I’m good at disguising myself, two-faced, fake, all that. Why do you want to hurt me, badmouth me, bully me, hu hu…’”

  Everyone comforted her: “There, there, stop crying.”

  Then the foolish crowd turned on him, cursing, damning, hexing: “You’re thinking you’re being bullied again? We were just joking with you.” “You’re really cruel—why treat her so unfairly?” “She’s beautiful and kind-hearted, yet you hate her.”

  One guy said something that woke me up: “You know that being sleazy, hypocritical, fake, or evil is also a personality, right? Even if what you say is true—what then? We still consider her a friend.”

  The others chimed in: “Exactly.” “We’ll never see you as a friend again.”

  At that moment, I realized one thing: “Birds of a feather flock together. Scum hangs with scum. Befriending trash only makes you trash.”

  In utter despair, he went home, wrote a suicide note to his parents, and finally hanged himself.

  It was the leader Anmorkzaraft who saved him from death and granted him the power for revenge.

  Anmorkzaraft told him: “Who you are is decided not only by yourself, but also by those around you. If you surround yourself with trash, you become trash too.”

  At that point, he understood—Yumoncaedra no longer wanted to help anyone in that class: “When two people don’t share the same vision, it’s very difficult—almost impossible—to walk the same path. If you’ve chosen the path of failure, what’s the point of me dragging you onto the path of success? It’s meaningless.”

  The next morning, he happened to catch Thu’s boyfriend out with another girl. He muttered: “Like attracts like. Flirtatious girl meets sleazy guy.”

  The guy came to warn him: “If you tell my girlfriend, I’ll kill you.”

  Yumoncaedra crushed his skull on the spot.

  Then he went to school and slaughtered everyone inside.

  Yumoncaedra stood before Lam Thu amid the blood-soaked school. He asked her: “Why me?”

  She calmly admitted: “I needed a shield to protect myself. When I saw you, I thought: ‘Oh, this will be the perfect cover for me.’”

  Yumoncaedra said: “I understand now. You always show your bold, passionate side to attract attention from guys. You didn’t approach me with good intentions—you approached me with ulterior motives. You just used me.”

  Thu nodded: “Exactly. I don’t understand why all the girls at my old school hated me—probably jealousy because I was too popular with boys. That’s why I needed you—to balance my relationships with males and females.”

  Yumoncaedra replied: “Do you know why the girls at your old school hated you? Because your flirtatious nature was easy for girls to spot. That’s exactly why every girl there despised you. You flirtatious girl.”

  She shrugged: “I don’t care. As long as I’m happy and feel good, that’s enough. Besides, I want to be famous. I want to stand out in the crowd, be the center of attention.”

  Then she sneered: “Now everyone hates you. How are you going to live the rest of your days, you failure, you useless piece of trash?”

  Yumoncaedra looked at her one last time: “I’ve learned what I needed to know. I no longer need to keep you around.”

  And then he killed her.

  The river continued to flow silently, carrying away the story of someone who had died. Yumoncaedra stood up, his boot heel striking the damp ground with a sharp, resolute thud.

  Chapter 7: Questions Without Answers

  The darkness remained thick along the riverbank, broken only by the soft lapping of waves that seemed to try washing away the filthy memories Yumoncaedra had just poured out.

  Yumoncaedra spoke first, his low voice carrying the weight of blood-and-bone experiences.

  “My experience can be summed up in one thing: Never make anything into a joke. If the world stops turning racial discrimination into comedy, racial discrimination will disappear. If no one jokes about violence, the world will have no more violence. Make fun of yourself? That’s fine—people think you’re funny. But make fun of someone else… that’s an insult.”

  Tehimosin listened quietly, then shifted slightly on the grass, his tone carrying a touch of melancholy:

  “Everyone has their own past. Have you ever asked her why she chose to live with two faces? Maybe she suffered deep psychological trauma, or when she needed help the most, no one cared—so she had to put on that mask just to survive?”

  Yumoncaedra froze. He turned to look at Tehimosin, eyes filled with astonishment mixed with bitter irony:

  “You really are just like what people say… genuinely kind-hearted. I wish I had met you sooner. But you’re too naive, Tehimosin. Even if I asked, would someone who lives by lies like her ever tell the truth?”

  Tehimosin gave a soft chuckle but didn’t reply, letting the words hang in the air.

  Yumoncaedra sighed, gazing out at the pitch-black river:

  “I’ve always wondered—why are there girls like that in the world? How do parents raise their daughters to turn out so flirtatious? Or do parents simply not have time to teach them properly? Is it the environment? The indulgence from family and friends? Or did they learn it from someone—maybe relatives or friends—and it gradually became a habit?”

  Tehimosin pondered for a moment: “I don’t know either. But I’ve heard people say that ‘a girl who’s outgoing combined with a very strong personality will become flirtatious.’ Not sure if that’s accurate.”

  “Why doesn’t anyone correct them?” Yumoncaedra pressed.

  Tehimosin didn’t answer directly. Instead, he countered with a question: “Then let me ask you this: ‘Would a guy rather sleep with one girl or sleep with many girls?’”

  Yumoncaedra paused for a beat, then nodded slowly: “I understand now.”

  “Guys want flirtatious girls for casual fun, right? Those girls aren’t the ones you marry,” Tehimosin continued, his voice sharpening. “If you marry one, the family will never be happy. They’re just… tools for temporary satisfaction.”

  Yumoncaedra shook his head: “But from what I’ve seen, flirtatious girls always end up with families.”

  Tehimosin replied: “Of course. With guys constantly around them, how could they stay single? But people like that… they’ll never have just one husband. Only… many husbands.”

  The atmosphere suddenly grew heavy. Both fell silent, listening only to the wind whistling past.

  Chapter 8: The Vanishing Mark on the Concrete Floor

  Monday, June 30, 2025.

  The stifling heat of late afternoon clung to the old transfer station area. Tehimosin narrowed his eyes, scanning the surroundings as a growing sense of unease rose within him. He decided it was time to leave this place and get to the bottom of whatever was happening.

  “It’s been too long since I last saw Leader Anmorkzaraft. How about we go meet him?” Tehimosin broke the silence.

  Yumoncaedra gave a short nod. “Fine by me.”

  “Wait here for a bit. I’m going to buy a gift,” Tehimosin said, turning on his heel.

  Yumoncaedra frowned slightly. “No need for any gifts.”

  “Of course there is! Why wouldn’t there be!” Tehimosin laughed and quickly disappeared behind the gray concrete blocks of the bustling commercial district above.

  But only fifteen minutes later, when Tehimosin returned with a bag in hand, the spot where Yumoncaedra had stood was empty. No note, no signs of a struggle—just as if he had dissolved into thin air.

  Tehimosin froze amid the cold concrete pillars. He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed the “Children of God” group.

  “Did you guys take out someone from the ‘The Tri-Gods’ faction?” His voice was urgent.

  The reply from the other end was calm and firm: “No. Everyone’s still at the company. No one has left.”

  Tehimosin hung up, staring at the darkening screen. Yumoncaedra wasn’t the type to vanish without a word—especially not after they had just agreed to go see the Leader.

  He stood alone in the heart of the city, surrounded by dazzling neon lights yet riddled with hidden dangers. The brilliant glow from towering skyscrapers spilled onto the black asphalt, creating an oppressive, suffocating atmosphere.

  He realized he was standing alone in the middle of a web of conspiracies whose starting point even he couldn’t pinpoint. Had someone taken Yumoncaedra away? Or had he walked into another purge on his own, not wanting Tehimosin to get involved?

  Tehimosin tightened his grip on the gift bag and stepped forward resolutely.